book quote of the day

"Sometimes it seems to me that every time a new piece of machinery comes into the door some of our wits fly out the window."

--Aunt Abigail, "Understood Betsy" by Dorothy Fisher



She's complaining about the facts that she can't tell time by a sundial as well as her grandmother could and that she'd be lost without matches. "Makes me feel foolish to think I'm not smart enough to get along, if I wanted to, without those little snips of pine and brimstone."

So many skills have been lost as we've let machines do things for us. Beorn has a fascinating book "Lost Crafts" that highlights some of those skills: hedge laying, trout guddling, making rushlights, pargeting, coopering, making tussie-mussies, etc. (Do you even know what those are?)

And most kids don't even know how to entertain themselves anymore... take away TV, computer and their store bought toys and they'll be lost. They don't know how to just "play" - how to make something out of nothing, use their imaginations and just PLAY.